Development of five-years Strategic and Business Plan for the Gambia investment & export promotion agency (GIEPA)

Description of the project and Services provided:

The Development Objective for the proposed Gambia Growth and Competitiveness Project (GCP) is to improve the investment climate and strengthen the competitiveness of key sectors namely tourism and horticulture. One of the subcomponents of the GCP project is to support the Gambia Investment and Export Promotion Agency ( GIEPA)

Services provided:

I. Review the recent Study (restructuring of GIPFZA and 5Year Business Plan);
II. Hold consultation meetings with GIEPA and other stakeholders in The Gambia;
III. Propose updates to the previous consultancy work and recommend actions to optimize performance and address issues identified with GIEPA;
IV. Devise a five-year Strategic and Business Plan for GIEPA that includes the following:

1.1. Strategies and work plans (detailed and budgeted for the first two years and indicative for the remaining three years) on the following:.
     •Implementation of GIEPA’s 3 core promotion and support competencies.
     • Investment promotion (sectorial and geographic plans, investor outreach, campaigns and activities, diaspora assessment and targeting, etc.) and investor servicing    and facilitation – this will take into consideration an update the findings of the IDB study;
     • Export market development (sectorial and geographic plans, importer outreach, campaigns and activities, etc.);
     • MSME support (targeting of barriers to SME development, R&D, loans, market surveys, etc.) taking into account the MSME National Policy, Strategies & Action Plan;
  1. 2. Policy advocacy, private-public dialogue and engaging with domestic and international partners (public, private and institutional);
  1 .3. Communication, image-building and media outreach;
  2. Optimized organizational and management structure including staffing plans, performance appraisals, oversight arrangements and corporate governance;
  3. Performance indicators and a monitoring and evaluation framework

V. Deliver a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that allows tracking, follow up and reporting on investment leads and investors’ concerns;
VI. Devise and deliver capacity building strategies for GIEPA staff on core promotion and support competencies (in-house training modules, twinning programs, placements, etc.);
VII. Prepare Operations Manuals for GIEPA staff.